> I am consistently baffled how a political party can make so many decisions that are objectively wrong and still garner support of roughly 50% of the population
They have realized that at least half the population is one or more of {stupid, not paying attention, gullible}, and so they figure they can get away with anything.
Look at what they are doing in South Dakota. The people of South Dakota passed a ballot initiative, "The South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act", in November that makes it illegal for lawmakers to receive more than a total of $100 annually from lobbyists in the form of "any compensation, reward, employment, gift, honorarium, beverage, meal, food, or other thing of value made or given directly or indirectly". It also creates an independent ethics commission, increases penalties for bribery, and bans politicians from becoming lobbyists for two years after they leave office.
The South Dakota legislature is not happy with this. They have introduced a bill to repeal it. Normally if such a bill passes there would then have to be another referendum to give the public a chance to veto it, since it is trying to repeal an initiative passed by referendum.
To work around that, the South Dakota legislature has declared a state of emergency. That will allow their repeal to take effect immediately and there would not be a veto referendum.
OK, think about that a minute. The anti-corruption act was passed by a direct vote of the people. You would think that a legislature trying to overturn that would be worried about how that appears, right? You'd expect that the bill would have just one or two sponsors, carefully chosen from legislators who are planning to leave office after their current term anyway and so who don't have to worry about pissing off the public too much. The rest who want to pass it could then at least see what the public reaction is before deciding if actually voting "yes" on this thing is politically safe.
No. It has something like 75 sponsors. About 50 from the South Dakota House and 25 from the Senate. They are apparently so confident that the public will not punish them for this that plenty of them are signing on.
All Republicans, by the way. (As were the 2/3 of the legislature that had to vote to declare that there was a state of emergency).
They have realized that at least half the population is one or more of {stupid, not paying attention, gullible}, and so they figure they can get away with anything.
Look at what they are doing in South Dakota. The people of South Dakota passed a ballot initiative, "The South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act", in November that makes it illegal for lawmakers to receive more than a total of $100 annually from lobbyists in the form of "any compensation, reward, employment, gift, honorarium, beverage, meal, food, or other thing of value made or given directly or indirectly". It also creates an independent ethics commission, increases penalties for bribery, and bans politicians from becoming lobbyists for two years after they leave office.
The South Dakota legislature is not happy with this. They have introduced a bill to repeal it. Normally if such a bill passes there would then have to be another referendum to give the public a chance to veto it, since it is trying to repeal an initiative passed by referendum.
To work around that, the South Dakota legislature has declared a state of emergency. That will allow their repeal to take effect immediately and there would not be a veto referendum.
OK, think about that a minute. The anti-corruption act was passed by a direct vote of the people. You would think that a legislature trying to overturn that would be worried about how that appears, right? You'd expect that the bill would have just one or two sponsors, carefully chosen from legislators who are planning to leave office after their current term anyway and so who don't have to worry about pissing off the public too much. The rest who want to pass it could then at least see what the public reaction is before deciding if actually voting "yes" on this thing is politically safe.
No. It has something like 75 sponsors. About 50 from the South Dakota House and 25 from the Senate. They are apparently so confident that the public will not punish them for this that plenty of them are signing on.
All Republicans, by the way. (As were the 2/3 of the legislature that had to vote to declare that there was a state of emergency).